Revelation 7:13

Revelation 7:13

Heavenly Raiment.

I. Here, in the text, we are presented to a great, victorious company. These pure, victorious ones are as numerous as they are beautiful; from all nations they come; all languages have they spoken; yet have they all been beaten and bruised with the tribulations of the world, and they have come not only out of affliction, but out of great affliction. They were cleansed; their hearts were cleansed, and their garments too. Often in the world they were dressed in meanness, in shame, in sadness, in toil; but all is changed: instead of meanness there is splendour, instead of weakness strength, instead of a heavy heart garments of praise, instead of shame the robe of purity, instead of toil the dress and the palm that denote victory. But how came they to be dressed meanly in this world? Consider what dress is, and how, though it may represent you if you can attain it, you may be unable to attain the material of which to form dress corresponding to your true character. Our dress is made of that which the world around supplies to us. If it be a stupid world, we cannot be robed in such a dress of bright intelligence as we would fain put on; if it be an evil world, we cannot be robed in a joyful dress full of holy excellence. We cannot clothe ourselves as we could if the general sense of mankind were higher. The victorious ones had been clothed meanly (1) because the state of the world was evil, and (2) because their own state was imperfect.

II. He that cleanses his heart cleanses his raiment, and if your heart be refined by the fires of God, then all that is exterior to you will be washed by the waves of the world. Though all this beautiful apparel of saints in heaven is indeed the gift of God by the inward work of His Spirit, from within passing outwardly to the very body and the very raiment I say, though it is the gift of God, in a certain true sense it is woven by ourselves. Man is but a worm, yet he spins material out of which God adorns heaven. "What are these?" said the reverend elder; "whence came they?" he cried with exulting tone. "Son of man, canst thou tell?" Let the youth of the world hear the voice of this elder. These are the choice ones of this earth, the chief in spiritual contests, the agonised, the disparaged, the killed, the flower of the Church's chivalry, who represent in their victorious love and beautiful apparel the whole company of the saved. In the flood and the fire they heard a voice say, "Onward!"; on the steep of the mountain they heard a voice say, "Upward!" And when a sad voice called, "All flesh is grass," the flesh of saint and of sinner, they could answer, "The grass that withereth is clothed in goodly raiment, finer its flowers than kings' robes; and are we not kings and priests unto our God? and, much more, will He not clothe us?"

T. T. Lynch, Three Months' Ministry,p. 70.

References: Revelation 7:13; Revelation 7:14. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xviii., No. 1040; A. Mackennal, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 300.